5 Honduran migrants die in Mexico van crash, 18 injured

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Five Honduran migrants are dead and another 18 are injured following the crash of the van they were riding in on Mexico’s southern Gulf coast, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute said Friday.

The dead include four adult women and a two-year-old child. About half of those injured are children.

The type of panel van in which the 23 migrants were traveling is frequently used both for public transport and smuggling migrants in southern Mexico.

The van appears to have skidded off a highway Thursday and rolled, or somehow been crushed into a mangled heap, according to photos distributed by the institute. The crash occurred on a highway near the city of Cardenas, in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.

Because smugglers often use unsafe vehicles, cram too many migrants in or try to evade police, accidents involving those vehicles are not uncommon in Mexico.

In February 17 migrants were killed when the bus they were traveling in crashed in the central Mexican state of Puebla.

Migrants frequently use trucks and buses to travel through Mexico to reach the U.S. border.

In 2021 a truck carrying migrants overturned on a highway near the southern city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, killing 56 people.